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Posted
13 hours ago, DixonHur said:

Anyone else moving money into the international market?  And/or consumer staples?

I've been rebalancing my portfolios to be less US centric in hope of avoiding the isolationist crash.

Am I overreacting?

International markets are going to hurt equal or more than US markets.  Too intertwined.  

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Posted
2 hours ago, horn4life said:

It's a risky as fuck ETF that is supposed to mirror 1 and 2 month VIX futures contracts at 2X.  It has a nearly 2% expense expense ratio, and I bought it for a hedge against my PLTR, which I no longer own.  I should have honestly used put options more to protect the PLTR as Insurance. Would have saved me a nice chunk on the way down.

It's supposed the be 2X VIX - I'm in it because I see nothing but volatility in the near term.  And tariffs are inflationary. Period. Large capital investment is already starting to wane, as how can a competent CEO's make decisions when economic policy from the Federal Government is akin to roulette?  That's why I am in it.  It's a short term hedge, that is now my only position.  Basically it's a supposed to be a 2x volatility.  So a 2x bet against the market.

Isn't even a true bet "against" the market, but a bet on day to day volatility of options on the SPX.  600 pt down days in a row followed by a 600 pt up day can garner the same result.  You basically want a lot of movement every day.  I've seen UVIX do very little or even go down during 8 straight down days where the market was finishing down by .1-.3%.  It's the 1%+ days stacked on top of each other that really get UVIX going.  

Posted
13 hours ago, DixonHur said:

Anyone else moving money into the international market?  And/or consumer staples?

I've been rebalancing my portfolios to be less US centric in hope of avoiding the isolationist crash.

Am I overreacting?

I cashed out every "non-essential" stock I own back at the end of January when you-know-who started flapping his gums about tariffs.  I wanted to keep something invested in my 401k so moved 25% to a Euro Stock Market fund.

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Posted
1 hour ago, 52-80 said:

Exactly 1 week ago, the NYT reported that a bunch of Mexican traffickers expressed genuine fear over increased arrest/prosecution risk. This in response to Mexico extraditing 29 traffickers to the US due to tariff pressure and also possibility of direct US action via designating them as terrorists.

So the 40+ year "War on Drugs" could have been solved with some tariffs all those years ago?  Jesus, man.

  • Haha 1
Posted
Just now, Fudge Nuggets said:

So the 40+ year "War on Drugs" could have been solved with some tariffs all those years ago?  Jesus, man.

Shoot the Times, not the reposter

Posted

I recently moved a large percentage of my retirement funds into cash. I would rather risk losing short term profits as opposed to seeing the floor drop out underneath me. I figure that I will soon start dollar cost average buying.

i understand the sentiment that you can’t time the market but there are also signs that we’re much more likely to go down than up. If I’m wrong, I won’t lose a minute of sleep.

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Posted
18 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I recently moved a large percentage of my retirement funds into cash. I would rather risk losing short term profits as opposed to seeing the floor drop out underneath me. I figure that I will soon start dollar cost average buying.

i understand the sentiment that you can’t time the market but there are also signs that we’re much more likely to go down than up. If I’m wrong, I won’t lose a minute of sleep.

I was considering same yesterday but didn't this time.  I did this during COVID and went cash pre- market crash and patted myself on the back at how smart I was.  Then missed the fucking runup and didn't buy back in until I was at a loss.   I'm overly liquid right now though non-retirement and slow rolling putting that into the market. 

Posted
59 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I recently moved a large percentage of my retirement funds into cash. I would rather risk losing short term profits as opposed to seeing the floor drop out underneath me. I figure that I will soon start dollar cost average buying.

i understand the sentiment that you can’t time the market but there are also signs that we’re much more likely to go down than up. If I’m wrong, I won’t lose a minute of sleep.

I did the same thing when COVID first came on the scene.  While many were in pure panic mode I was sleeping like a baby.  Obviously I didn't get back in at the bottom but I caught enough of the recovery that my retirement account came out much better than if I had just HODL.

Posted

I've got quite a bit of cash in a non tax sheltered account that I chose to leave on the sidelines post November.  I'm hopeful that there will be some buying opportunities of stocks, not guns and canned goods because society has collapsed.  I hate camping and the District's firearm laws are a fucking PITA. 

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Posted

I hadnt thought about that Cathie Wood idiot in quite awhile, but heard that her portfolio was now back to underperforming the SPY on a 52 week basis. I thought that was odd, since last time I noticed the symbol, it was on a pretty nice run. So I checked the portfolio allocation....she's certainly got the touch. Truly gifted. 

image.thumb.png.1449ffe1eaec8ad7fb4af6d88e7eb3b6.png

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Posted
1 hour ago, 52-80 said:

Im a net seller of call options on 90% of my UVXY transactions but in my IRA i dont fuck with uncapped risk positions so I bought some puts on it. 🙈

Right there with you!

Sold March $57 calls on 1/3 as my first try to get some cash for downside, and bought $39 puts, and sold $57 on the remaining 2/3 a little later as the gains receded..  The good news is that first 1/3 of calls I sold paid for the cost of the protection/income of the other 2/3.  Learned from not keeping my PLTR stops tighter on at least some of my holdings.  And that cost me.

So at least I have some downside protection and a some more room to run to the upside. 

Posted
1 hour ago, The Original Greaser Bob said:

I'm at retirement age.  This one is going to suck worse than COVID because despite Trump's efforts to fuck things up then, the world understood that we'd come back from COVID.

From this asshole's current attempts to fuck with the entire world?  Not so much.

I'm about 4 years away.  Hoping a lot of unfucking happens between now and then.

Posted
58 minutes ago, horn4life said:

Right there with you!

Sold March $57 calls on 1/3 as my first try to get some cash for downside, and bought $39 puts, and sold $57 on the remaining 2/3 a little later as the gains receded..  The good news is that first 1/3 of calls I sold paid for the cost of the protection/income of the other 2/3.  Learned from not keeping my PLTR stops tighter on at least some of my holdings.  And that cost me.

So at least I have some downside protection and a some more room to run to the upside. 

Todays VIX, VIX futures, and all its ETP products are red for the day 😆

The vol scare today =

image.jpeg.c942f0647babcd0962bb896658ca81c7.jpeg

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Posted
3 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

I've got quite a bit of cash in a non tax sheltered account that I chose to leave on the sidelines post November.  I'm hopeful that there will be some buying opportunities of stocks, not guns and canned goods because society has collapsed.  I hate camping and the District's firearm laws are a fucking PITA. 

i moved to cash in feb 2025.

looking and feeling pretty fucking smart.

 

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Posted
6 minutes ago, wackawacka said:

i moved to cash in feb 2025.

looking and feeling pretty fucking smart.

 

I liquidated my NVIDIA today and stuck it in a high interest-bearing account.

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Posted
1 hour ago, WBT said:

This is a fuck

 

11 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Fucking UNO reverse card

 

10 minutes ago, wackawacka said:

i moved to cash in feb 2025.

looking and feeling pretty fucking smart.

 

 

2 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

I liquidated my NVIDIA today and stuck it in a high interest-bearing account.

I moved about 30% into cash in Feb, and today added to my SPY puts. These were short term (Thur/Fri expiry) in anticipation of President Huff & Puff saying shit tonight that will negatively impact the markets over the next couple of days...shit like increasing tariffs, calling out Ukraine leadership, laying off thousands of federal employees, drill baby drill (which will cost the O&G industry money), crypto prez,  maybe pardoning more criminals. Most of these things will cause stocks to flinch.

Posted
5 hours ago, Blotto said:

I hadnt thought about that Cathie Wood idiot in quite awhile, but heard that her portfolio was now back to underperforming the SPY on a 52 week basis. I thought that was odd, since last time I noticed the symbol, it was on a pretty nice run. So I checked the portfolio allocation....she's certainly got the touch. Truly gifted. 

image.thumb.png.1449ffe1eaec8ad7fb4af6d88e7eb3b6.png

She's basically just heavy Tesla and always has been.

Posted
2 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

 

 

 

I moved about 30% into cash in Feb, and today added to my SPY puts. These were short term (Thur/Fri expiry) in anticipation of President Huff & Puff saying shit tonight that will negatively impact the markets over the next couple of days...shit like increasing tariffs, calling out Ukraine leadership, laying off thousands of federal employees, drill baby drill (which will cost the O&G industry money), crypto prez,  maybe pardoning more criminals. Most of these things will cause stocks to flinch.

Wait til we get the jobs numbers on Friday.

Oh, and earnings season is going to be fun.

We're going to have a shitshow well into 2Q25.

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Posted
8 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

Wait til we get the jobs numbers on Friday.

Oh, and earnings season is going to be fun.

We're going to have a shitshow well into 2Q25.

oh - short expiry options are the ones you can play with as often as you want, for as much as you want to lose

Posted (edited)
18 hours ago, Chopper said:

The only thing that makes me feel better about the stock market is that it's back to about where it was prior to the "irrational exuberance" post-election.

But do you think this is the same actual level of exuberance today, that we had then?  

When Commerce Secretary Lutnick comes on TV Monday and explains that these tariffs are NOT anything but absolutely necessary because of Fentanyl, and then flips by the end of the next day as markets fall. Suggesting less that 48 hours later the administration may be flexible on what was an absolute necessity hours before?  This is the person speaking for US trade policy.  And I guarantee you Secretary Lutnick if asked could not write down on a napkin what US policy will be at any given data point in the future.  

And isn't that the definition of uncertainty?  IF this was a corporate rollout... you would short the company.

 

 ADP reported big jobs miss, 77K vs 186K. And those provisional Fed folks are going to be hitting the books, about the same time the tariffs should begin to impact inflation. Next Friday is gonna be exciting.

Edited by horn4life
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Posted

I wish I had the knowledge and wisdom of all you posters who are extremely familiar with the market and related investment instruments. 

All my dumbass knew is, that at my ancientness, I could not lose everything. or half of everything. So after the Trump swearing in stock market bump from fans of deregulation, I sold everything in my 401K (two decently aggressive mutual funds) and bought a bond fund that has all government backed bond instruments.

I have an old SEP IRA with about $100K in it that I turned into a CD making about 4.5%.     I have no idea what to do with it other than try to protect it from losing half its value if Trump’ economic plan continues in its current path. 

I would love to hear your thoughts as to how the dollar will do against various other international currencies, given what the hell is happening w/ tariffs and all of the financial reporting worried about a recession or even stagflation.    

tl;tr Does anyone have thoughts on a currency that is likely to do better against the dollar if the tariff wars continue, interest rates rise and unemployment increases more than modestly?

Naturally, you have absolution for negging me for a stupid question penalty. 

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Posted
39 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

I wish I had the knowledge and wisdom of all you posters who are extremely familiar with the market and related investment instruments. 

All my dumbass knew is, that at my ancientness, I could not lose everything. or half of everything. So after the Trump swearing in stock market bump from fans of deregulation, I sold everything in my 401K (two decently aggressive mutual funds) and bought a bond fund that has all government backed bond instruments.

I have an old SEP IRA with about $100K in it that I turned into a CD making about 4.5%.     I have no idea what to do with it other than try to protect it from losing half its value if Trump’ economic plan continues in its current path. 

I would love to hear your thoughts as to how the dollar will do against various other international currencies, given what the hell is happening w/ tariffs and all of the financial reporting worried about a recession or even stagflation.    

tl;tr Does anyone have thoughts on a currency that is likely to do better against the dollar if the tariff wars continue, interest rates rise and unemployment increases more than modestly?

Naturally, you have absolution for negging me for a stupid question penalty. 

I am kinda you.  I went from 100% stocks to 75% stocks 25% tax free muni bonds for cities scattered across the country and distributed by climate, geography and politics.  I mean, the city of Austin has a higher credit rating than the U.S., at least according to the S&P.  I am bumping it closer to 50/50 today but not sure what to do with the 25% I will be taking out of the market.  I am well paid, but I am in my mid 50s and have retirement in sight.  Realistically, my next job will be at a pay cut and not by my choice.  I won't have a runway of peak earning years to recover from big losses.  Not sure what else I might should be considering.  Maybe foreign funds?  I do have oh-shit emergency funds distributed between cash, gold and bitcoin, so it's more about what to do with the big pot that I'd like to see grow, but not at the risk of being unavailable for retirement.

Posted
3 hours ago, VABuckeye said:

DINAR.  Put everything you have into it.

LOL

Everyone knows that you should split it 3 ways:
 - Amero's
 - BitCoin
 - $Trump Coins

23 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

These were short term (Thur/Fri expiry) in anticipation of President Huff & Puff saying shit tonight that will negatively impact the markets over the next couple of days...shit like increasing tariffs, calling out Ukraine leadership, laying off thousands of federal employees, drill baby drill (which will cost the O&G industry money), crypto prez,  maybe pardoning more criminals. Most of these things will cause stocks to flinch.

Well these opened nicely and went down all day - but tomorrow is a new day

Posted

Is anyone besides me actually shocked at the apparent complete lack of anticipation by the administration of the most obvious pitfalls?  I mean was it actually difficult to anticipate that without a carve out US cars will be increase dramatically in price?  I mean is that not the most glaring potential problem easily identified?  Or am wrong?

 

 

On the huge plus side!   For the first time in years Freshmen in ECO 101, actually get to live out the text they are read studying!  Usually economic shifts take longer than a semester to really observe.  Often years, but now freshmen can see the effects weekly or daily( perhaps hourly).  Probably makes the class a LOT more fun to teach as the discussions and debate would be very current.  I guess comparing and contrasting the Tariffs of the turn of the century and today, is a common writing assignment prompt in Economics classes across the nation.

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Posted
7 minutes ago, horn4life said:

Is anyone besides me actually shocked at the apparent complete lack of anticipation by the administration of the most obvious pitfalls?  I mean was it actually difficult to anticipate that without a carve out US cars will be increase dramatically in price?  I mean is that not the most glaring potential problem easily identified?  Or am wrong?

It's almost as if half this country is incapable of conducting second-order thinking.

Other short-sighted news that will eventually bite decision-makers, investors, and the general public in the ass:

Experts worry about degradation of economic data after advisory committees disbanded
Here at Marketplace, we report on economic data from the government all the time: stats on housing, the job market, inflation, and much more. They help us help you understand where the economy is and where it’s heading. Government data informs business decisions, and assists policy makers to, well, make policy. 

But now, the Commerce Department has disbanded two groups that worked to ensure the government’s economic data paints a realistic picture. The Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee and the Bureau of Economic Analysis Advisory Committee have been around for decades. What happens next now that they’re gone?

Erica Groshen had no idea this news was coming: “This came out of the blue, nothing up until I got the email yesterday,” she said.

And she was on one of the committees. An economics advisor at Cornell University, Groshen was told that the decades-old committee was getting disbanded because its purpose had been fulfilled.

“You don’t fulfill an ongoing mission by canceling this communication mechanism,” she said.

That mission? To get a bunch of experts at the top of their economic fields to help the government.

“When the BEA wants to develop a new methodology or maybe go into a new area they haven’t been before, they can run their ideas by the committee,” said retired economist and committee member Marshall Reinsdorf.

He said advice was one major benefit. The other was government transparency — the committees opened their doors to the public.

“It gives them a chance to reach out and get their message out to a broader community,” Reinsdorf said.

Getting rid of these two committees doesn’t save much money. Mainly because the members weren’t getting paid, said former committee chair David Wilcox with Bloomberg Economics and the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“So we’re talking about eight plane tickets, twice a year, one night at a non-fancy hotel. This was really inexpensive stuff,” he said.

And it was money well spent, Wilcox said.

Former committee chair Louise Sheiner with the Brookings Institution said with less input, the data that the government gathers will get worse over time. And that data is supposed to provide answers on GDP and productivity and jobs and inflation.

“Depending on what question you’re asking, you’re going to go to the data, and if the data are not good, your answers to those questions are also not going to be good,” she said.

Sheiner said disbanding the committees was a mistake. The Bureau of Economic Analysis declined to provide Marketplace with a comment, and the Commerce Department didn’t respond to our request.

 

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Posted
1 hour ago, bolverk said:

It's almost as if half this country is incapable of conducting second-order thinking.

Other short-sighted news that will eventually bite decision-makers, investors, and the general public in the ass:

Experts worry about degradation of economic data after advisory committees disbanded
Here at Marketplace, we report on economic data from the government all the time: stats on housing, the job market, inflation, and much more. They help us help you understand where the economy is and where it’s heading. Government data informs business decisions, and assists policy makers to, well, make policy. 

But now, the Commerce Department has disbanded two groups that worked to ensure the government’s economic data paints a realistic picture. The Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee and the Bureau of Economic Analysis Advisory Committee have been around for decades. What happens next now that they’re gone?

Erica Groshen had no idea this news was coming: “This came out of the blue, nothing up until I got the email yesterday,” she said.

And she was on one of the committees. An economics advisor at Cornell University, Groshen was told that the decades-old committee was getting disbanded because its purpose had been fulfilled.

“You don’t fulfill an ongoing mission by canceling this communication mechanism,” she said.

That mission? To get a bunch of experts at the top of their economic fields to help the government.

“When the BEA wants to develop a new methodology or maybe go into a new area they haven’t been before, they can run their ideas by the committee,” said retired economist and committee member Marshall Reinsdorf.

He said advice was one major benefit. The other was government transparency — the committees opened their doors to the public.

“It gives them a chance to reach out and get their message out to a broader community,” Reinsdorf said.

Getting rid of these two committees doesn’t save much money. Mainly because the members weren’t getting paid, said former committee chair David Wilcox with Bloomberg Economics and the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“So we’re talking about eight plane tickets, twice a year, one night at a non-fancy hotel. This was really inexpensive stuff,” he said.

And it was money well spent, Wilcox said.

Former committee chair Louise Sheiner with the Brookings Institution said with less input, the data that the government gathers will get worse over time. And that data is supposed to provide answers on GDP and productivity and jobs and inflation.

“Depending on what question you’re asking, you’re going to go to the data, and if the data are not good, your answers to those questions are also not going to be good,” she said.

Sheiner said disbanding the committees was a mistake. The Bureau of Economic Analysis declined to provide Marketplace with a comment, and the Commerce Department didn’t respond to our request.

 

Same move as COVID - if you have no data, then nothing is wrong

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